Drawing on work from a number of disciplines, this volume brings together experimental and theoretical information relevant to the problems of assessing children's reading comprehension. After a short introduction, the first section defines reading comprehension, presenting theoretical issues intended to provide an understanding of what is being measured and what that measurement means. The second section covers factors that influence reading comprehension and its assessment, stressing the importance of structure, content, and language of the text for the reader's comprehension of it, particularly in the context of his or her background knowledge. The third section deals with assessment methodology, including its purposes, the constraints on it, and the cognitive demands and information content of different assessment methods. The volume's final section charts new directions in reading comprehension assessment, asking what can and should be assessed and how this assessment might be carried out and also addressing question construction and the characteristics and interpretation of tests. (JL)